Saturday, May 16, 2009

Chipotle Pork Quesadillas

My apartment is infested. Carpenter-like ants are crawling everywhere in every room and so far I haven't been able to stop it. In fact, I woke up and had one crawling on me and in my bed — even though I thought my bedroom was a safe zone. YUCK.

The exterminator comes on Monday, but I noticed them Wednesday night — so unfortunately I have two more days of living among the ants and it's only getting worse. My dad came over this morning with some spray he had in the garage and I'm buying more ant traps at the store this afternoon. Hopefully that will slow them down. A bug in my bed is straight out of my nightmares.

The bug infestation does make cooking a bit of a chore. I'm pretty good about keeping up with dishes, wiping down the counters and sweeping crumbs off the floor every night after dinner, but I've been extra thorough and it's kind of tiring! I admit I've been looking for recipes with little prep like these Chipotle Pork Quesadillas. I ended up lightening up the recipe quite a bit, but it wasn't hard to do so.

For one, I used whole wheat tortillas and cut the number used by half. A tortilla a person makes sense. I just folded it over rather than using two of them. And I also cut the oil drastically by using only a couple of teaspoons to cook the onions in. I seared the pork in my cast iron skillet so I wouldn't need oil to get a crust on the chop and I used cooking spray on the tortillas. I also used low fat cheddar for monterey jack. I usually use the full fat and less of it for most recipes, but the quesadillas need to be cheesy. It's the glue that makes them stay together. So, I used a lighter cheese so I could use the full 1/4 cup per serving.

And they were great. If you like chipotle peppers in adobo, you'll love these pork quesadillas. They'd also be good with seared flank steak or even chicken if that's what you have on had. It's a great affordable, quick weeknight meal.